


Where the Hell are we going from here?

by Morgan_Dhu



Series: Short prose [8]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 05:49:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan_Dhu/pseuds/Morgan_Dhu





	Where the Hell are we going from here?

Where the Hell are we going from here?  
(A post-feminist looks at life, love, and political correctness)

When I was very young, not yet at school, it was all so simple. There was truth, and there were lies. When I told a lie, I usually got caught. And once I was caught, there was a very specific procedure to be followed. It started with being challenged, usually by one of my parents. They showed me the evidence that made them suspect me of lying, and I was supposed to acknowledge the lie, say I was sorry, and tell the truth. But then I went to school, and discovered that there were different rules for adults. It was my first introduction into the prerogatives of power, and it wasn't very pleasant.

My problem began when I began to hear people telling lies about other people, what they could and could not do. I did what I was supposed to do, I thought - I challenged their lies, and presented my evidence. Of course, this was not always the safest course of action, since the liars were the people in power, my teachers.

For my own part, I didn't have much trouble with this kind of thing from my parents. My mother was in many ways a remarkable woman: a college graduate who had a stint in the air force before her marriage in the mid-fifties, she had always worked: part-time when I was young, full-time after I started school. And she was a psychologist, a professional woman, who gave me perfect proof that at least some women could do some things as well as - or better than - men. Despite the standard Christian upbringing, she spent six months on an Israeli kibbutz, and shared with me a deep respect for the ancient traditions of the people she had worked with. My friends of all colours and faiths were equally welcome in our house. Racism and sexism did not have much fertile ground to root in.

School was a different matter. I began my school years in the sixties, and I can clearly remember the teacher who told my class, all bubbling and excited over the first space flights, that women could never be astronauts. I wanted to know why she said that. As I recall, she mumbled something about bathrooms. I asked her why the Russians could have a woman cosmonaut like Valentina Tereshkova - did Russian women go to the bathroom differently? I was sent to the principal's office for telling stories and disrupting class. Even after I brought in my treasured newspaper clippings to prove that a woman had ventured into space, the issue was never who was telling the truth, but how my behaviour had challenged the teacher.

This, of course, was the same principal who was always sending me home with notes to my mother because I had been fighting. Once I dared to ask why I was always sent to him for a note, when the boys I was fighting with never received more than a sharp word or two from the teachers prowling the schoolyard at recess. Obviously fighting was a more serious offence for a girl, and I wanted to know why. I was told that it was worse for girls to fight because our dresses could ride up and the boys might see our underpants. The principal did not appreciate my suggestion that if I was allowed to wear slacks, as I did at home, then the boys would never be exposed to such shocking articles. It seemed the logical thing to do (something I had been assured was a male perogative}, but he didn't see it that way.


End file.
